Friday, May 09, 2008

NOTE: Well y'all, after a long break off, I'm officially 2/3 of an attorney. I had hoped to make my come-back post something fun and funny. Then I just got pissed off, so you're in for a rant. Please stay tuned for some fun to return.

I had decided Wednesday that I would no longer make snarky remarks about the Clintons. The election is all but over, the bad behavior will soon be a thing of the past, and now is the time for some much-needed unity because the choices in November are quite clear.

Then Hillary Clinton had to act a fool. Again.

Clinton cited an Associated Press poll "that found how Senator Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

Sometimes I wish our elections were like Showtime at the Apollo. If they were, someone would have chased the Clintons off the stage by now with a very big broom.

Now, despite the fact that I have spent my day today shopping for ties for a pal's wedding and seeing a matinee of "Iron Man" with Craiggers, I think I'm a fairly hard working white American. I don't spend my whole day on my feet like my mama, but I work it when necessary. That pesky college education I earned by working my way through, the education that is apparently keeping me from supporting Sen. Clinton, wasn't necessary for me to know this: Democrats loose white people every election, and have for a couple of generation. Bill Clinton lost white folks. Both times.

There was a time when we called Bill Clinton America's first black president. He just seemed to have a way of relating to people different than him to the point that you felt like he was one of you. That was the way for gay folks too, even though he consistently sold us out once he was elected. Clearly that relationship was a one-way street because the Clintons and their surrogates have shown over and over that black voters are not the party voters who really matter.

The behavior of the Clintons is all the more shocking because statistics show that it was a coalition led by black voters who put Bill Clinton into office. He lost among white voters to both Bush and Dole, just as all Democrats do. So why the Clintons and the pundits devalue the black vote is beyond me.

Black voters turn out to exercise their choice in heavy numbers, and they do so with loyalty to the Democratic party. Instead of trying to lure back the so-called Reagan Democrats (who, newsflash, are not coming back), we should be building the party with voters who will be as consistent and loyal as African Americans have been. And instead of insulting them with claims that the voters who really matter are the mythical white folks of the Clinton coalition, progressive white folks should be thanking the black voters for saving our asses over and over again. The Clintons ought to be offering rides to the polls for black voters with a foot rub afterward. After all, they're the voters who built the legacy that the Clintons are quickly destroying with every ill-advised comment.